


The One Time Peter Can't Breathe

by 2takuya



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Trans Male Character, Trans Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 02:04:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14631795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2takuya/pseuds/2takuya
Summary: Peter Parker can usually forget that he's trans, but occasionally his body likes to remind him that there are things he struggles with that makes his life hard.In this one Peter can't breathe while fighting an enemy and Tony then finds out that Peter is trans (as do the rest of the Avengers).WARNING! Spoilers for Avengers Infinity Wars so if you haven't seen it and don't want spoilers, DO NOT READ!





	The One Time Peter Can't Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> If you missed the warning in the summary, I make references to Avengers Infinity Wars (there's a warning in the tag too and honestly if you're still here and you somehow missed those and then ignored this it's no longer my problem). Anyways, if you don't want spoilers and haven't seen it then don't continue.

Most days Peter Parker can almost forget that he doesn’t have a flat chest. His chest is relatively small compared to other guys anyways, so once he puts a binder on it almost seems as though he’s an average cis guy. (Yes, his Aunt May does still have to constantly remind him that no, his chest looks flat and he shouldn’t worry so much)

And sure, he would love to be on testosterone so maybe his voice would actually start getting even just a little bit deeper. But he’s not the only guy his age whose voice hasn’t started changing yet. And he thankfully already looks mostly masculine, he’s in shape enough that he can pull off a masculine figure without the needed assistance of the hormone just yet.

Maybe he does wish he had something extra between his legs, but even if he didn’t it wasn’t like other people would be able to tell just by looking at him. (Although some days he was near hyperventilating at the thought that EVERYONE knew what was really between his legs)

But most of the time Peter could ignore all those things. His chest seemed flat with his binder on, he really didn’t need to worry about his voice and hormones and all of that until at least next year, and if he wanted the feeling of something between his legs he could just wear a packer.

It was when Peter was binding for long periods of time that he couldn’t ignore things any longer. As of late it was getting harder to ignore. 

For as long as Peter could remember he looked up to people like Tony Stark, Captain America, and even Black Widow. The Avengers is what they called themselves. Mostly ordinary people who had somehow come together to do something incredible. During his freshman year of High School, Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, and since then he had become the incredible.

Ever since he had gained his powers, which he had since dubbed his “spidey powers”, Peter was constantly going out in the evening on patrols around the neighborhood. Stopping robberies, helping old ladies cross the street, stopping a dad using alien technology from stealing more alien technology from the Avengers so that he couldn’t sell the tech to evil people who would use the tech for bad things. You know, just your every day good citizen things. Spiderman, the persona he took when dressed up and doing good deeds for the community, had even assisted Iron Man when Captain America had fought against the Accords. (Things between Iron Man and Captain America were good now, in case you wondered. Stopping an alien from committing mass genocide with the help of the Infinity Stones tended to smooth over rough relationships)

The one problem with going out on his evening patrols, besides almost being arrested a few times and sometimes coming home with a sprained ankle or wrist or bleeding profusely in some way, was how long Peter now had to bind in order to somewhat feel normal. His patrols usually lasted a few hours, which took place after the academic decathlon team had practice (which was about an hour to an hour and a half), which took place right after a 7 hour school day. So lately Peter has been wearing a binder without break for anywhere upward of 10 hours. For any normal person that’s way too long to be wearing a binder without breaks, but add in all of the extra workout that being Spiderman gives Peter, and it’s no wonder that lately he’s been returning home from patrols with an aching ribcage that has nothing to do with stopping bad guys.  
______________________________  
Why is Peter reflecting on all of this now? A few days ago he got a phone call from Tony Stark, which before you get all excited it is still a huge deal, but usually Mr. Stark only called Peter about his “internship” (working for Mr. Stark as a friendly neighborhood vigilante).

Anyways, Mr. Stark asked for Peter’s help in rounding up some Chitauri that had apparently come online recently. After the battle of New York (which happened when Peter was 7), the signal that was being sent to the aliens known as the Chitauri presumably went offline. The alien bodies were gathered up and taken in for study by secret government facilities. Recently, however, Chitauri have been cropping up around the city and no one is really sure why. Peter had, of course, already heard plenty about the recent citing’s of the aliens on the news. He hadn’t expected Mr. Stark to ask him for help in rounding up the weirdo’s though.

Peter, of course, jumped on the chance to help though because “Oh my god Mr. Stark I’m going to be helping the Avengers! Does this mean I’m an actual Avenger now? I know you declared me one on the space donut, but it was only us and Dr. Strange and I wasn’t really sure if that actually counted because we weren’t on Earth and maybe you can’t officially become an Avenger unless you’re on Earth and-"

Mr. Stark cut him off telling him to calm down, and to meet him at Stark Industries.

That was a few days ago, and since then Peter has been going over where the Chitauri have been spotted cropping up so far, with the help of Dr. Bruce “The Hulk” Banner. Peter was still having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that one of his most admired scientists was also The Incredible freaking Hulk. But he was also having a hard time containing himself because Dr. Banner’s work on increasing resistance to gamma radiation was next level and he wanted to ask about some of Dr. Banner’s theories because some of them were wild, but now was not the time because they had creepy aliens to find.

Peter was sure that Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner could find the Chitauri without his help. He was pretty sure he really wasn’t much help in the process of determining a central location of where the Chitauri were sprouting from. Still, he was absolutely thrilled to be in the same room as such important figures as these two were.

“Hey kid, I need you to triangulate the point where all of these things are coming from while Bruce and I work on a way to stop them for good. Our normal weapons don’t really do much damage against them,” And if Peter wasn’t practically vibrating at the fact that Mr. Stark trusted him to help with something this important!

Of course, taking all the data points of where the Chitauri had all been spotted and using it to determine a centralized location between them really wasn’t that hard. Even if Peter did have to create an entire program just to determine it, because Mr. Stark apparently had never needed to run an algorithm of this sort before.

Apparently, he was having more luck than Dr. Banner or Mr. Stark, too, because he already had a result of where the aliens seemed to be appearing from while both men were still working to create a weapon that would finally stop the aliens.

Peter let Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark talk things out for a bit, but eventually he got tired of waiting for what he felt like should have been an obvious solution. “Have you guys ever seen that old movie Men in Black?”  
____________________________  
Really, Peter should probably be thankful that he hasn’t had this problem before while fighting crime. He was constantly pushing his body to the limits and the fact that this is the first time he found himself on the ground with chest pains during a fight should be considered a miracle.

Of course, Peter didn’t really care about how he should be feeling. What he actually was feeling was betrayed by his own body. Betrayed by the fact that he has to wear constricting material to keep large sacks of flesh and fat and glands strapped tight to his chest. Betrayed by his lungs for struggling against the material to let him breathe, deciding to finally give up forcing air around the restricting material. Betrayed by his ribs for god damn aching so bad.

And of course, his body had to betray him in the middle of their fight against the Chitauri.

Mr. Stark had finally trusted him to help them in an important fight, and his body was refusing to cooperate. No matter how much he pushed to get his body to just move, and honestly it should be easy to just keep fighting because it was either that or lay here and possibly die. And yet his body just wouldn’t listen to him.

To add insult to injury, he’s already been saved by Captain America twice now. Of course, Captain America was too nice to rub that fact in, but it still stung just a little bit because now one of his heroes would see him as inferior and he had finally gotten the chance to prove himself and he had blown it.

The only upside to this whole day, Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner had gotten the weapons to defeat the Chitauri to work. 

What sort of weapons were they? Do you know how in the movie Men in Black, there’s that giant cockroach alien thing, and K gets swallowed but ends up blowing up the cockroach alien from the inside with his gun? 

Thankfully, they were able to skip the being swallowed part, and just designed small explosives that had to be aimed inside the mouths of the Chitauri. The outer shell of the aliens was much harder than it’s insides, and with the new weapon taking care of the Chitauri went much smoother this time compared to the battle of New York.

“Kid, I gotta hand it to you. These explosives were a really great idea, who would have thought the little blue people were so soft inside?” Mr. Stark rhetorically questioned, slowing down his descent to the ground with the thrusters on the feet of his Iron suit.

“Men in Black isn’t that old of a movie though,” was a mumbled complaint that could be heard from one Dr. Banner. It went ignored easily enough though, the scientist was just sore that there were teenagers alive now who were born years after one of his favorite movies came out.

Peter offered a weak thumb up to Mr. Stark, glad that his suggestion had helped them defeat the aliens so easily. The fight was over now, but god breathing was just so hard and air going to his lungs shouldn’t be so complicated but of course it was his body and his body hated him so of course it was-

“Kid, hey kid you alright?” Mr. Stark’s voice broke through Peter’s internal rambling. He realized with a start that Mr. Stark was kneeling beside him, hands gripping his shoulders and eyes showing his concern. 

Mr. Stark had apparently removed his Iron Man face plate, though when he did that Peter really isn’t sure.

“You need to breathe kid, come on,” Mr. Stark was instructing him, but of course Peter already knew that, he was trying to breathe his body just wasn’t listening. “Bruce, oh god, he’s breathing funny. Bruce, help me.”

Mr. Stark was panicking now, and if Peter wasn’t currently feeling like he might actually be dying he might have found the situation funny. After all, Mr. Stark was a genius, he should be able to easily help someone who wasn’t breathing. Peter was glad to know Mr. Stark cared enough about him that he would be liable to panic if something was wrong with him though, it was actually rather touching. 

At first Peter wasn’t even aware that Dr. Banner had even made his way over to them. His attention was narrow in the fact that he was aware of himself and of Mr. Stark who was hovering nervously next to him. Of course, he noticed immediately when he felt hands probing at his rib cage and a bit at his chest and oh god if it was hard to breathe before Peter was pretty sure that his lungs just entirely collapsed because there were hands on his chest and oh god oh god they would know it was all over he couldn’t be an Avenger because they all would know he is trans and they would hate him. Captain America was born before people even knew what trans was, he would think Peter was disgusting and did Asgard even have trans people?

Peter must have missed something while his brain was busy panicking over every worst case scenario, because when his attention focused back in on what was going on around him Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark both were eyeing him expectantly and a bit worried at the same time.

“Wha-?” Peter managed to breathe out.

“How long have you been wearing this binder Peter?” Dr. Banner asked him, and fuck if the disappointment in the scientist’s voice didn’t crush him.

“Er, since 6 this morning,” Peter mumbled, avoiding looking at either Mr. Stark or Dr. Banner now.

“What!?” If Peter thought the disappointment in Dr. Banner’s voice was crushing, the disappointment and surprise that he could hear in Mr. Stark’s voice was even worse.

This was his worst fear, come to life. Mr. Stark meant the world to him, and the man was never going to talk to him again. Shit, he was going to want the suit back. He would never be an Avenger, and he would never get to ask Dr. Banner about his research with gamma radiation and how was he going to give Happy the Spider-man keychain he had gotten the man for his birthday? (Happy was a closet Spider-man fan, Peter could just tell.)

“-yeah, next month sounds perfect. No, it’s okay, I’ll make sure his schedule is clear. No physical activity for a few weeks? That’s fine, I’ll make sure he’s not doing anything he shouldn’t be. Yes, thank you, we’ll see you next month then.” Peter wasn’t sure what exactly he had missed, but Mr. Stark was hanging up from a phone call and Dr. Banner just looked relatively amused. “Alright kid, you’re gonna be taking some time off school next month. You also won’t be going around in spandex next month either, I’ve got you scheduled at the best top surgeon on the East coast and I’ve just been told you aren’t allowed to do any physical activity for a few weeks after the surgery.”

And if the fight to breathe while wearing his binder wasn’t making his head spin, then the information Mr. Stark was laying on him certainly was.

As if Dr. Banner knew exactly how confounded Peter was he clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Congratulations, come next month you won’t have to worry about all of this hassle,” the scientist encouraged him. “Now come on, let’s get you loaded onto the quinjet. We can get you some comfortable close at the compound and you can spend a few hours relaxing in a room by yourself so you can breathe some.”

Peter’s head was still spinning as he boarded the jet. Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark both knew he was trans, and neither seemed to have a problem with it. From what he could tell, the rest of the Avengers had heard the surprising news, and no one had confronted him negatively about it. Mr. Stark was mumbling about how if Peter had told him sooner then the surgery could have already been done with. From what he had overheard Black Widow telling Hawkeye, she felt like Peter would be perfect for an apprenticeship because he “already had practice going deep undercover as a female” and she was apparently highly impressed that he had spent over 15 years undercover as a girl. Hawkeye didn’t have much to say, but Peter was pretty sure at this point that he was just worried about how Black Widow was planning to train him, which if he was being honest Peter was worried about as well. 

Captain America had embraced him as he boarded the quinjet and told him how impressed he was with how strong Peter was to be dealing with so much for such a long time without telling anyone. And that he could come to Captain-callmeSteve-America if he needed anything, because he was worried that Peter might be dealing with bullies at school and while the hero wasn’t wrong Peter wasn’t planning on going to him about his problems.

Thor had smacked a hand to his back and declared loudly, “Man Spider! I have heard that come the passing of 30 moons you will soon have the scars of a warrior. When you have healed we shall dine and drink like warriors!” And then Thor went to sit at the front of the quinjet, leaving Peter to take a seat near the back where he would be able to think.  
_____  
Honestly, Peter Parker never thought that his life would get to where it was today. He was back on patrols as Spiderman, recently healed from the top surgery Mr. Stark had kindly paid for. He was accepted by the Avengers with open arms, even Vision and Wanda who heard about everything second hand didn’t have a problem with it. Dealing with things that threaten the safety of the world probably put things into perspective of letting people live in ways that make them happy as long as it’s not harming anyone else.

He never expected that the Avengers would accept him as being trans, but he was extremely grateful to have been surprised by the heroes.


End file.
